Acquired
Episode 24: Skype
Every company has a story.
Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.
Show Notes
An acquisition so wild and crazy, they had to do it again. And again. Ben & David cover tech’s perhaps most-traded asset, Skype (which also happens to be a fantastic business). How do we even know which deal to grade? Tune in to find out…
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Topics covered include: Community spotlight: Slack community member Swyx’s financial data research startup Sentieo!
Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis’s meeting in the 1990’s at Swedish telecom company Tele2
Zennström & Friis’s introduction to talented Estonian developers Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla, and Priit Kasesalu as part of Tele2’s efforts to jump into the dot com “portal mania”
Skype’s origins in the technology powering Zennström, Friis and the Estonians’ first startup endeavor together: the peer-to-peer file sharing platform Kazaa
The “complicated” legal, technological and ownership situation for Kazaa and Skype
Skype’s “unique” corporate culture, including a swimming pool in the board room and shots for initiating new employees
The first Skype acquisition: eBay’s 2005 deal to acquire the company for $2.6B, just two years after launch
Culture clash between eBay and Skype management, and further legal drama regarding Skype technology ownership post-acquisition
The second Skype acquisition: eBay’s 2009 decision to spin the company out to a private investor consortium including Silver Lake and the newly-formed Andreessen Horowitz
The third (and final?) Skype acquisition: Microsoft’s $8.5B purchase of the company in 2011
Skype as a “crossover” product with viable market opportunities both in consumer and enterprise
Bill Gurley’s “Keys to the 10X Revenue Club” and the power of Skype’s organic customer acquisition model
Followups:
The Google iPhone… err, Pixel!
Hot Takes:
AT&T’s $85B mega-acquisition of Time Warner… making America great again, or rebuilding the T-1000?
The New York Times acquiring The Wirecutter
The Carve Out:
Ben: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny
David: SOMA the Musical starring our very own Acquired listener, the brilliant and talented Jake Saper!
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